


Celebration

by suchastart



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-10
Updated: 2013-11-10
Packaged: 2018-01-01 03:14:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1039680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suchastart/pseuds/suchastart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She wants to tell Percy about the way Poseidon looked at her, the way he searched her face, the way he let her hold his hands and the regretful, wistful tone wrapped around his words. That boy’s in love with you, he’d said, like he was reminding them both of this gift, like he was trying to warn her of something, like he wanted, more than anything, to help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Celebration

“You know what feels good?” Annabeth tosses her head back and leans fully into the cradle of Percy’s arms, throwing her hands up to the glittering Olympus sky. There are so many stars she is filled with them. The world is dizzying and vast and she breathes in handfuls of suns, holds them in her lungs, keeps them bright and warm in her heart. She is buoyant. “This.”

Percy laughs. He tightens his hold on her waist. Her hair tumbles from her shoulders and the cool, sweet-smelling breeze across her bare arms is wonderful—everything is wonderful. Olympus is beautiful, the celebration is amazing, and Percy, handsome in his toga, handsome especially under the torchlight, is here.

“Agreed,” he says, his own words not too focused above the chatter of the crowd and the music around them. “We could do with more wine, though.”

Annabeth pulls herself up straight too quickly, everything a blur until she grips his arms and focuses in on his eyes, steadying, his pupils dilated. “You are the smartest person I know. Where’s my goblet?”

“I think we left them at the table.” He disentangles himself from Annabeth and walks with her toward a large central fountain, helps her lower herself to the edge. The hem of her own toga, light and wispy, pools at her sandaled feet as she sits.

Percy kisses the top of her head. “Be back in a second.”

He leaves to find them more wine, and Annabeth has a moment to herself for the first time since arriving at Olympus. She’d been hesitant to even come, at first. The anniversary of Zeus and Hera’s marriage? It didn’t bode well. But her mother sent her a gorgeous embroidered toga, under which Annabeth has her dagger strapped to her thigh, so it’s not like she can’t play the part. Plus, with Percy on her arm, they can make it a date night. A date night with their crazy family. Romantic.

And it’s all so beautiful—the towering marble columns, the gold statues, the intricate topiaries and fountains, her demigod family and friends dressed in white togas. Everything is lit by torch-glow and floating lanterns and Annabeth is overwhelmed with it all. She helped build this world. She stood in the wreckage of this place, all those years ago, and imagined what she could do to fix it. She stood with her campmates and fought by their sides through all their quests and trials. Though difficult and complicated—and perhaps not what she’d choose for herself if given the choice—this is her family, all of them, gods and demigods alike.

And here they are, celebrating an anniversary, something so normal that it almost weirds her out.

“Strange, isn’t it?”

Annabeth gasps. Poseidon sits next to her, a familiar grin on his bearded face, his hand at her back to keep her from tipping into the fountain. His touch is sobering. Looking into his eyes is like staring into the ocean itself, his shifting irises alternately green, clear blue, brown, sea-foam white, a whirlpool of colors, a mesmerizing whirlpool of colors, always changing, flowing and pushing into one another like waves against the shore, and she can almost hear—

“Annabeth?”

She shakes herself. Poseidon is sitting next to her. Poseidon is watching her with those hypnotic ocean eyes, his warm hand on her back, looking at her like he’s expecting her to say something.

Well?

“Yes. Yes, hi, Poseidon,” she says, laughing, the wine making her a little more than daring when she reaches out and takes his free hand in her own. His palm is as large as a golden dinner plate and warm like summer-hot sand, scarred and browned and massive, but he lets her hold it in her own. She smiles at him, her boyfriend’s father, god of the sea. She feels suddenly, irrationally shy. “Hi.”

“Hello,” he chuckles. He nods towards the long buffet table, where Percy, two goblets in hand, spine stiff, has been cornered by Athena. “Lose someone?”

Annabeth sighs. “I wish she wouldn’t. She knows she intimidates him.”

This makes Poseidon grin. “People do funny things for love. This, for example,” he says, taking his hand from her back to motion to the clusters of people, to Zeus and Hera standing together at a raised dais. Zeus whispers something into Hera’s ear, and Hera, blushing (blushing? Annabeth squints, disbelieving, and yes, there’s a patch of pink against Hera’s cheeks), ducks her head.

“It’s just weird,” Annabeth admits.

“Strange, yes, how we wage wars yet come together as family again and again. We’re capricious. It’s a fault. But our kids—well, you all keep us in check.”

He squeezes her hands, gentle, and touches his finger to her chin to tilt her face up. She doesn’t know what he’s looking for, and she feels a bit like he’s staring through her, into her soul, into her innermost feelings, into her past and her future. There’s something sad about his eyes. “That boy’s in love with you, you know.”

Annabeth takes an unsteady breath, looks over to see Percy walking away from Athena. Too handsome for his own good—his messy hair, his strong arms, that impish smile. He rolls his eyes when he sees Annabeth watching, as if the gesture will convey his full scope of annoyance with her mother, then raises the full goblets of wine, mouthing, Yay!

Percy Jackson, in love with her. She knows. She knows it with every part of herself.

“Dad,” Percy greets when he arrives at the fountain, passing a goblet to Annabeth. Poseidon frees her hands so that she can reach up and take the drink, and she may take a few gulps too many, whoops, but it’s not every day Poseidon sits with her for a soul-searching one-on-one. It’s too unsettling.

She doesn’t know what any of it means—and that may be the most unnerving part.

“Mind if Annabeth and I go for a walk?” Percy asks his father.

“Not at all.” Poseidon stands, heads taller than them both, and winks at Annabeth. He pats Percy’s shoulder—for his prepared brace, Percy is still jolted forward, wine sloshing from his goblet—and walks away, toward Athena and the buffet table.

Annabeth feels like something heavy is lifted from her chest.

Percy helps her stand. “Do I want to ask?”

She wants to tell him about the way Poseidon looked at her, the way he searched her face, the way he let her hold his hands and the regretful, wistful tone wrapped around his words. That boy’s in love with you, he’d said, like he was reminding them both of this gift, like he was trying to warn her of something, like he wanted, more than anything, to help.

“No. Come on,” she says, slipping her arm around his waist, leading him away.

Gods are impossible, she tells herself; they are impossible and vague and have no grasp on the realities of mortal lives. Poseidon hadn’t meant anything. What’s real, right now, is Percy at her side, his obnoxious jokes making her snort with laughter. What’s real, right now, is the way they dance, the way he twirls her dizzy and dips her, sneaks kisses against her throat until a blush rises to her chest.

What’s real, right now, is his hands warm at her back and the stars in his eyes, thousands of them, as he looks at her. “Not a bad party,” he says as the music slows, as Annabeth rests her head against his chest. “Even with Hera stinking up the place.”

Annabeth tries to hide a giggle in his toga.


End file.
